Canederli & Cantina di Montagna Muller Thurgau of the Trentino Alto Adige

Time is flying and we have covered about a quarter of Italy by now with our Italian Food, Wine & Travel (#ItalianFWT) group including Tuscany, Piedmont, Emilia Romagna, the Veneto and now today we talk about the Trentino-Alto Adige region. 

Fortunately, I just returned from this region a few weeks ago visiting the town of Trento, the capital of Trentino. Trentino-Alto Adige is considered 1 region, but the southern part is Trentino and the northern part is Alto Adige and they both have their respective capitals with Bolzano serving as the capital of the Alto Adige. 

This is the 2^nd alpine region of northern Italy I have visited and am in love with the way the mountain ranges dominate over the valleys and small villages. The air is crisp, clean and there is no better way to enjoy the outdoors and peace and quiet than in regions such as this.

I ventured to the town of Trento by train, which was only about an hour on the train coming from Verona where I was based. I love being able to wake up in the morning and jump on a train making it easy to enjoy a multitude of regions and towns conveniently. Trento is an easily walkable town in the downtown center much closed off by cars. I first started my journey around the city center from the Piazza Duomo, a magnificent large square with the Fountain of Neptune serving as the center and the a tower and church as the borders along with cafes and shops with the Dolomite mountains as a backdrop. It doesn't get much better than this to start with a deep breath and enjoy the surroundings.

Piazza Duomo ~ Trento

Here are some of my highlights architecturally of Trento that I enjoyed.

Buonconsiglio Castle Museum

Duomo ~ Trento

After exploring and wandering throughout the day and taking in the sites and prior to my return in Verona I took a much needed rest and stumbled upon a place called Duo. Duo serves as a restaurant downstairs and upstairs where I enjoyed window side seating at the bar that serves a variety of tapas, which is always so fun especially when you are getting a feel for what a regions cuisine has to offer. I decided to go with a dish typical to the Trentino region, which was canederli. Canederli are small dumplings made with stale bread and speck. If you aren't familiar with speck it's a ham that is salt cured and smoked. It's a simple cuisine that can be enjoyed by itself as I had or in a soup.

Canederli with Muller Thurgau

 The Trentino-Alto Adige has many Germanic influences and this can be discovered by the grapes found in this region. Enjoying my canederli I chose a local white wine, 2013 Cembra Cantina di Montagna Muller Thurgau Vigna delle Forche. This particular winery located in the Cembra Valley is set up high on the Trentino mountains making for very difficult harvesting. The winery is a cooperative that consists of about 400 growers that was established in 1952. This area is home to a special type of red rock known as porphyry. The Muller Thurgau of Cembra Cantina di Montagna was fresh, crisp with lots of minerality balanced with good fruit and some slight herbal notes.

Don’t stop here. We have lots more great information to share with you on the Trentino-Alto Adige region. Join the rest of our Italian bloggers group: 

FoodWineClick – Trentino-Alto Adige is Different: Goulash and Teroldego  
Orna O’Reilly – The Italian Dolomites: A Foodie’s Paradise 
Rockin Red Blog – Wine and Dine in Trentino-Alto Adige with #ItalianFWT 
Enofylz Wine Blog – A Taste of Alto Adige – Cantina Terlano Classico  
Cooking Chat - Italian wine with Indian Curry  
The Palladian Traveler - Under Doctor’s Orders in the Trentino 

Make sure to join us live on Twitter today and throughout the weekend at #ItalianFWT to chat about the Trentino-Alto Adige region and your experiences. We can’t wait to hear from you. Check back at #ItalianFWT throughout the month as well for additional blogs on food, wine and travel of Italy. Next month on April 4th we feature Sicily so stay tuned. Ciao ciao!

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Italian Food, Wine & Travel features Trentino-Alto Adige

Welcome to our 5th Italian Food, Wine & Travel (#ItalianFWT) group and since we're still in winter I figured let's escape to the northern regions of Italy.  If you're in the Boston area where I reside, folks are hoping we're out of it sooner than later due to the enormous amount of snow this winter, but I personally love the snow.   One of the beauties for myself of northern Italy is the alpine landscape that dominates over many of the villages as you get closer and closer to the borders of Switzerland and Austria.  There is nothing like those snow capped peaks over the valleys and towns.

My recent trip to Trento

This Saturday, March 7th, the #ItalianFWT group is featuring the Trentino-Alto Adige region in northeastern Italy.  There will be a large variety of Food, Wine and Travel discussed from this wonderful region that is often less explored than the others, but has much to offer.  Here is a preview of what is to come later in the week.  We hope you join us back here and live on twitter Saturday and throughout the weekend at #ItalianFWT.  Our features will be:

Vino Travels - Canederli & Muller Thurgau of Trento
FoodWineClick - Trentino-Alto Adige is Different: Goulash and Teroldego
Orna O'Reilly - The Italian Dolomites: A Foodie's Paradise
Rockin Red Blog - Wine and Dine in Trentino-Alto Adige with #ItalianFWT
Enofylz Wine Blog - A Taste of Alto Adige - Cantina Terlano Classico
Cooking Chat - Italian wine with Indian Curry
The Palladian Traveler - Under Doctor's Orders in the Trentino

Compliments of welcometuscany.it

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Unique varietals of Italy with Mucci Imports

One of the reasons why I chose to write this Italian wine blog are to educate on the Italian grapes produced throughout Italy that many folks aren't aware of or super familiar with, myself included.  With hundreds and hundreds of grape varietals throughout Italy it's hard to know every one and that's what makes drinking wine so fun. You may try a grape in one region that can be very different in another as well based on the Italian terroir that I recently discussed in one of my recent articles last week.

Nick Mucci

Today I wanted to introduce you to Nick Mucci of Mucci Imports.  I've met Nick a number of times at wine tastings in the Boston area.  

Mucci Imports, owned by Nick Mucci, is a Boston based Italian wine importer specializing in unique Italian varietals from producers he has hand picked throughout his travels from living in Italy and developing special relationships with the winemakers.  Nick first started Mucci Imports in 2013 towards the end of the summer.  When I first met Nick he was introducing his wines to folks at Ball Square Fine Wines in Somerville and I was intrigued by his selections when I saw the announcement.  Being an Italian wine blogger I love the opportunity to try Italian wines, nevermind those that are unique to Italy that are sometimes hard to find over here in the states. 

With Nick being of Italian heritage, both Sicilian and Abruzzi, and growing up in an Italian household, the excitement of Italy and all things Italian is what built up throughout his life.  His Italian heritage is one of the reasons that got Nick to want to live abroad where he moved to Italy for over 3 years.  From living in Italy and experiencing the Italian lifestyle, it became the driving force completely for what he is doing now.  When Nick moved over to Italy  he lived in Rome and taught English.  After living 2 years in Rome Nick enrolled in the MBA program of food and wine at the University of Bologna where he studied for a year.   There he developed further relationships with professors, other students and designed his wine importing business plan.   

While living abroad with his girlfriend they would travel and get lost and come upon festivals, sagre, where he met not only wine producers, but cheese and olive oil producers as well.  All his travel while living in Italy was food and wine based to some capacity.  From meeting these producers the people and relationships that he built along with the welcoming aspect of the people were one of the greatest satisfactions for Nick.  He was welcomed with open arms.  Speaking the language and understanding the culture helped him relate to them.  When he came back to Boston to visit family he wasn't seeing in restaurants or shops any of the wines locally that he was experiencing for himself in Italy creating even more a reason to start Mucci Imports. 

Mucci Imports currently works with about 12-15 producers and imports from regions including Emilia Romagna, Piedmont, the Veneto, Tuscany, Abruzzo (where Nick has cousins that make wine), Campania and Sicily.   Originally Nick wanted to start all with Sicilian wines since he has a lot of passion for this region.  A lot of the wineries Nick works with are quite small.  The wines that he imports and sells are not what the masses are typically looking for.  In educating his buyers and their customers he further hopes to make these wines more appreciated and known.  That is what drives Nick every day to promote the wines of Italy. 

Growing up around this area Nick has focused his efforts on selling wine in and around the Boston area.  You can find some of his  wines at restaurants including Giulia's in Cambridge, Coppa in the South End  and Pastoral Pizza in Fort Point.  You can also located them in your local wine shops including Ball Square Fine Wines in Somerville, Social Wines in South Boston and Federal Wine & Spirits on State Street downtown.

I've written about one of his wines in the recent past when my Italian bloggers group (Italian Food, Wine & Travel, #italianFWT) wrote about the Emilia Romagna region. 

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